canna

canna

[Lat.,=cane], any plant of the genus Canna, tropical and subtropical perennials, grown in temperate regions in parks and gardens for the large foliage and spikelike, usually red or yellow blossoms. Today, most cultivated cannas are hybrids, but two species are found wild in the S United States, one called Indian shot because of the hard shotlike seeds. C. edulis, Queensland arrowroot, is cultivated in the tropics for its rootstock, a commercial arrowrootarrowroot,any plant of the genus Maranta, usually large perennial herbs, of the family Marantaceae, found chiefly in warm, swampy forest habitats of the Americas and sometimes cultivated for their ornamental leaves......Click the link for more information. starch. Canna is classified in the division MagnoliophytaMagnoliophyta, division of the plant kingdom consisting of those organisms commonly called the flowering plants, or angiosperms. The angiosperms have leaves, stems, and roots, and vascular, or conducting, tissue (xylem and phloem)......Click the link for more information., class Liliopsida, order Zingiberales, family Cannaceae.

Canna

the only genus of the family Cannaceae. The plants are large perennial herbs with strong stalks; they often have tuberous thickened rhizomes. The leaves are large, broad, pinnately veined, and sheathed. The flowers are irregular, monoecious, large, and usually brightly colored; they are gathered into a paniculate terminal racemose or inflorescence. The perianth is binate. Only half of the anther of one stamen is fertile; the remaining half and the other stamens are petaloid and are stami-nodia. The stigma has a petal-like style. The ovary is inferior and trilocular. The fruit is a capsule. There are approximately 50 species, found in tropical and subtropical America. There are approximately 1,000 garden varieties (for example, Canna × genera lis and C. × hortensis), which are used in cultivation. They differ in color, leaf color, size, height of stalk, and form of the staminodia. The species Indian shot (C. indica) is cultivated in Europe as a greenhouse ornamental; C. edulis is grown in the Americas and Australia for its rhizomes, which contain starch from which the queensland arrowroot is obtained.

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